Before being able to do such things as an energy simulation to determine heat losses and gains of and through various components of a building structure, costing out construction, renovation work, or graphically representing a building using a computer-based application, (e.g. a CAD program), it is necessary to have information concerning the geometric form and orientation of the structure, dimensions of the structure, areas of individual building components (e.g. ceilings, walls, and floors), and volumes of spaces contained within the building structure.
Conventional methods of computing areas of surfaces and volumes of spaces involve performing numerous hand calculations that are prone to error, are tedious and time consuming to carryout, and are also very often done in an unsystematic and approximate manner. Some computer-based applications calculate areas of surfaces and volumes of spaces, but only if detailed structural data have been appropriately provided to the application. The preparation of detailed structural data for such applications often involves intermediate hand calculations.
Graphically representing a building structure using a computer-based application also requires the appropriate provision of detailed structural data to the application. The tasks of preparing an interdependent set of detailed structural data and entering the data into computer-based applications are expert skills and are also tedious and time consuming.
Before being able to graphically represent a building structure using a computer-based application and to calculate areas of surfaces and volumes of spaces, it is necessary to have a description of a building structure's geometric form, orientation, and dimensions. Conventional methods of collecting and recording this information involve hand-drawn building sketches (e.g. floor plans). Drawing building sketches by hand is prone to error, is tedious and time consuming, and is also very often done in an unsystematic and approximate manner.
To describe the building structure of a typical residential building when conducting a detailed energy audit that includes an energy simulation to determine heat losses and gains of and through various components of the structure, the conventional method involves hand-drawn building sketches, collecting dimensional and structural data from the building, calculating areas of surfaces and volumes of spaces, and can take up to 10 person hours for a single building. It is desirable to have an improved method that can considerably reduce this time and hence the associated cost.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved method of describing a building structure.